Gaining confidence in the kitchen, one messy pan at a time

Things that make you roll your eyes….

I base almost everything in my life on a cost (or time) to value ratio. Basically, is the juice worth the squeeze?

Usually, it’s not but sometimes it really gives you a nice cup of O.J.

Not this time.

I spent almost 90 minutes making Sautéed Basil Chicken. It seemed fairly easy to make from reading the recipe. I thought, “This will be a cinch!”. Yes, people still say “cinch” these days and by “people”, I mean, “me”.

Somehow, I went through a time warp in the kitchen. I’m pretty sure that I’ve blogged about that before. I think my first mistake was not re-reading the entire recipe a bazillion times like I normally do. I was feeling quite savvy and decided to just read over it once beforehand then again while in the process of making it.

I guess I glanced over the part that said to cut the chicken into 1-inch pieces because I placed almost 2 pounds of chicken tenderloins in the frying pan and thought to myself, “Self, that doesn’t look right”. So I re-read the recipe and found the part that said to cut the chicken into 1-inch pieces. Sigh. I remove the chicken; it was partially cooked on the bottom, place it onto the cutting mat and slice it up then placed it back into the pan. That set me back about 5 minutes, I swear.

But what about the other 85 minutes? Well, there is the prep. Have you noticed how certain kitchen tools are made to aide you in the kitchen? Have you noticed that sometimes it actually takes longer to use those “aides” than if you hadn’t used them at all? I did tonight. For instance, I bought this measuring cup with a grater on top. It’s meant to be used to mince, slice, etc. while measuring at the same time. I needed to mince garlic and onion so I used it. But I also spent 3 minutes just trying to get the protective cover off of the blades. Sigh. There are other numerous doo-dads that just aren’t as easy as they appear to use. For instance: the melon baller.

First of all, how often does melon need to be balled? Second, melon balling is an artistry in itself. Have you ever tried to use one of those things? It’s all in the wrist. Of course it takes about a million semi-circle melon “balls” before you finally get the knack of using the melon baller and finally learn that it’s all in the wrist. By that time you’re all melon-ed out.

What about tongs? We’ve all used them. They seem pretty straightforward. But if something happens to them (toddler mishap) and they get just ever so slightly bent and therefore unaligned, they are rendered useless.

I know that I’m not the only one out there to have spent several minutes using their tongs, just not being able to fully grasp the food that you’re either trying to flip over on the griddle or transfer to a serving dish when you just could have grabbed a fork or a spoon. Let’s be honest, tongs were not meant for transporting large quantities of food and a fork or spoon would probably be about right for the amount that you’d be able to move at one time.

Tongs=useless

Lesson learned: Keep. It. Simple. Sweetie.

Positive lesson(s) learned: Where is that damn melon baller, anyway? Also, take-out is so much easier.